We will start this review very differently from normal, by talking about the sheet size and weight of this machine. Having owned a 17 inch laptop I had been prepared to expect a slightly bigger machine, but nothing could prepare for what i saw upon opening the X780’s box. This machine has the same sort of footprint as a standard 17 inch machines, but it is incredibly tall. You are talking almost 2 inches here, and for a laptop that is a lot. I can assure you, ‘behemoth’ and ‘powerhouse’ are definitely apt ways of describing it (especially with the unit’s weight of ~4kg). It is a very good-looking machine. With a brushed metal lid, and what looks like carbon fibre bordering the keyboard, it looks smart.

It is obvious that all of this space is for the components, and the cooling they need, that make this laptop a state of the art quad core gaming machine, with some quite impressive specs.

• Intel Q9000 2.0Ghz Quad Core Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 512Mb DDR3
• 2GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM
• 250GB 7200rpm SATA HDD
• 8x Dual Layer +/- DVD-RW
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 17” 1920x1200px Glass Screen

You can see the power just bulging out of the machine.

‘rock are selling this machine as a ‘budget’ quad core gaming machine, but we are yet to see the ‘budget’ side of a £1699.00 price tag. Of course with spec like this we have to put the X780 through some benchmarks to test this power.
3DMark Vantage:  3768 Points
SuperPi Calculate 1million (19 iterations): 31.485 seconds

We also were able to play some games on this machine, such as Crysis and Red Alert 3. We have to say that Red Alert 3 was a dream to play, with no lagging or slowing. But we could ‘only’ play Crysis on medium, above this and it became unplayable. Even though, playing Crysis on Medium is no mean feat for a laptop.
At the time of writing rock are giving each buyer of an eXtreme series laptop a copy of ‘Assassins Creed’, something we did not receive with the review sample,; as well as a 30 day trial of the MMORPG Eve Online. These games will run very well on this machine, and should be a good baseline for seeing what it can do.

To go with this spec, we have a wide array of Inputs and Outputs:

• 4 x USB 2.0 + 1 x E-SATA
• 7-in-1 Card Reader
• 34mm Express Card Slot
• 1 x mini IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port
• HDMI Output
• DVI Output
• Headphone, Microphone, S/PDIF Output Jack
• 10/100/1000 Lan, 56k Modem, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi

This plethora of ports will ensure you will be able to use pretty much any device with this machine without worrying. Moreover, for those of you who prefer your current monitor, there is a DVI to VGA adaptor in the box.
But with all this power and good, has to come some bad. And unfortunately there is quite a bit of it on the eXtreme 780. First is the weight. The sheer mass of this machine makes it very uncomfortable to use it on your lap for any period. Whilst recording this week’s bitcast, Andy was unable to keep the laptop on his lap for very long. This is not helped by the amount of heat generated by the powerful components in this machine.

Whilst looking very nice, the X780 does unfortunately dissappoint in some areas.

Second is the touchpad, which at times was almost unusable. It took a good few scrolls of the pad to get the cursor from one side of the screen to the other, and even then, it often did not respond to some strokes or scroll actions. When this is mixed with the painfully long, at times, boot time; it became almost painful to have to turn the machine on and launch a program.
So, we come to the matter of the price: £1,699 :O. This is a very expensive machine, with most similar machines either being Macs or a slightly better spec. Although there is no doubt that the components themselves make up the bulk of this price; once they have been combined they leave you with a product that does not seem to us to be truly worth the price. Unfortunately, it could just be that the unit we have received has faults (as I have seen before on many laptops); which have hindered our enjoyment of the product.

In conclusion I cannot give the X780 more than 3.5/5 due to some rather intrusive problems with the final product.

With there being several different versions of this laptop, the features vary, but this particular model includes these:
Windows Vista Home Basic operating system
3.2 hours of battery life (Bapco MobileMark 2007 battery)
8-in-1 media card reader
Intel X3100 Integrated Graphics card
4 USB 2.0 ports
DVD RW drive
Built-In 802.11b/g wireless

Speaking as someone who has been using Window’s XP up until now, the laptop’s operating system does take some getting used to. As a whole it’s a very competent system and even the Basic package comes with everything you’ll need for student life – including the full Microsoft Works, giving you the word processor for those 10,000 word dissertations and spreadsheets for keeping that budget up-to-date! Furthermore, Vista’s ‘Welcome Centre’ is an invaluable help in so far as getting started on your new laptop – walking you through the easy transfer of files from an old computer and getting you connected to the net quickly and efficiently. You can even customise the side-bar to host a whole range of gadgets specific to your own needs. However Vista does have its downsides. It isn’t always the most user-friendly system. One odd quirk I’ve found is that the process of saving documents has been changed considerably since XP and, in my opinion, overcomplicated. On the other hand this is just one of a few small quirks which don’t really affect the laptop’s performance, but just take a little getting used to. On other problem which has been reported with Vista (although I’m yet to experience this problem for myself) is that the operating system takes such considerable effort for laptops to run, that it can severely impact the computer’s performance in terms of speed and the use of multiple applications.

In so far as the graphics go on the Inspiron 1525, opinions are mixed. The 15.4 inch screen and X3100 Integrated graphics card combine to really do justice to those stunning holiday photos and make for excellent viewing if you’re watching films on the laptop. So from what I’ve personally seen the graphics on this computer are excellent. However, I’m no gamer – and reviews of the X3100 graphics card itself in relation to gaming potential aren’t so enthusiastic. It seems that this card isn’t up to the challenge when it comes to games with seriously in-depth graphics and can produce a very slow frame rate. It seems that this graphics card has more to show for itself when used in conjunction with XP than with Vista – so if you’re a gamer, it might be worth looking into something with a different graphics card or operating system.

As for the sound, its nothing extra special, but its not bad either. The speaker is one long strip located above the keyboard / below the screen and its output can be controlled by the touchpad beneath it. The touchpad allows the user to change the volume and mute as well as controlling the media player, with options to change track (or scenes, if you’re watching a movie), play/pause and stop. At first this can be odd to get a feel for, as you can find yourself constantly reaching for the turning dial on the side of the laptop to change the volume, only to find it isn’t there – however, it doesn’t take long before you can enjoy the novelty of your shiny new touchpad! As for the sound itself, it is of a very good quality. Although, like most laptops, not very loud, it does have very good clarity and I’m more than happy to listen to music and watch films without having to plug in external speakers. Furthermore, the laptop does also have a built-in microphone – the quality of sound produced by which I was happily surprised by!

Other features of the Inspiron 1525 include a very reasonable battery life. At 3.2 hours it outstrips many other laptops within its price range, most of which seem only to last for up to 2-2.5 hours. As with most computers it is also possible to change the power settings so as to consume less energy and make that battery life stretch even further. The 8-in-1 media card reader is an excellent little space-saver, conveniently located at the bottom of the laptop’s front and supports several of those commonly used media cards such as SD camera cards. Plus it comes with a card-shaped piece of plastic that slots into place when the reader is not in-use to help keep out the dust and such. The laptop also comes with 4 USB ports (which I find particularly useful and convenient!) and a DVD re-write drive, as is standard for the majority of products on the market today.  The drive is not capable of supporting HD, but considering the youth of HD technology, most (sensible) people won’t consider that to be a serious flaw in a £339 laptop!

All-in-all I’m very happy with the Dell Inspiron 1525. It does have a few small drawbacks, for example certain usability issues, but these just take some getting used to, and some graphics issues – but those are only really drawbacks depending on what you’ll be using your laptop for. It is also worth noting that you can buy this laptop with Window’s Vista Home Premium, and with a higher-power processor and a greater capacity memory through Dell’s own website, although this is perhaps not for most of us ‘financially challenged’ students as it does, of course, mean paying more. I, however, am more than happy with the lower spec version: its still a fantastic little laptop with a good memory and processor, decent sound and graphics, a great battery life and a sleek, stylish look. Gamers; this laptop probably isn’t for you if you’re hung up on mind-blowing graphics – but for anyone else the Dell Inspiron 1525 is not only an excellent laptop, but also great value for money!

Score: 4/5